If there's one cliché that follows veteran Bryn Haworth around it is that he is a
"musician's musician," in other words, a muso recognized within the
guild as a musical maestro. The critical acclaim, and down the years
countless recording sessions, resulted, of course, from Bryn's
superlative slide (or "bottleneck") guitar. Developed by pre-war blues
and gospel giants like Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson, slide
guitar has today become one of the most emotive sounds in popular
music and Bryn is an acknowledged giant of the style. But more than
that, Bryn has quite simply developed his own, unique slide guitar
sound. Critic Roger Hill wrote, "[Bryn] seeks not to imitate the
ominous quality of Muddy Waters or the frenetic attack of Elmore James
or the piercing sting of Lowell George, discovering instead a gentler,
mellower approach which sounds like nobody else and which beautifully
compliments his highly melodic songs."

The first time I remember seeing Bryn was before I was a Christian and
he made an appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test, the BBC's hugely
influential TV rock show. I remember being impressed by his dazzling
guitar playing. Now here we are decades on welcoming Bryn and his wife
Sally into the Cross Rhythms radio studio. As well as clutching his
trusty acoustic, Bryn has also brought with him a batch of recordings
rare enough to make the eyes of any reader of Record Collector
magazine shine with excitement. For one of the things Bryn has come
specifically to speak about is his early years in music. Rimmerama
kicks off and soon Bryn's fascinating musical and spiritual saga is
underway.

Raised in the Lancashire town of Darwin, Haworth's father was a school
teacher and Bryn attended the school where he taught. Haworth was 11
when he first picked up the guitar. He laughs, "I really wanted one
for a couple of years and I used to go around the house playing
egg-slicers; anything with strings on, you know; just plunking things
like tennis rackets and saying, 'Please mum, I want a guitar!' 'Dad,
can I have a guitar?!' But they didn't think I was serious and so they
made a deal with me: 'If you get a guitar then you HAVE to go to
lessons and you can't have one of those electric ones,' which was what
I wanted! So they bought me this really uncool classical guitar but it
was the only way I could get a guitar. So I went to lessons for a year
and it was the best thing I could have done because the teacher was
good and he got me fired up about the instrument and what it could do,
much more than I was hoping actually. So it was exciting."

Like tens of thousands of other young hopefuls, Bryn cut his musical
teeth playing in obscure local bands, including The Mustangs, The
Railroaders and The Mike Taylor Combo. Then, at the tender age of 17,
determined to make it in music Bryn headed for London. He remembers,
"I had a guitar and a small suitcase and I got on the bus at Blackburn
and went down to London and slept in Victoria Bus Station at night.
Then during the day, in those days in Soho, the music shops were in
Denmark Street and I would go in and they'd have audition slots like,
'Wanted: Lead Guitar Player'. So you'd call them up and queue up with
all the other lead guitar players! Eventually I got myself a job in a
band that had a house and so I could sleep on their floor but [I
spent] quite a while in Victoria Bus Station."

Fleur de Lys

The job that got Bryn out of Victoria Bus Station was playing with
Wynder K Frogg who had a hit with an organ-driven instrumental "Green
Door". But the band that really got the keen young guitarist
established were the Fleur de Lys. The band were a Motown/soul outfit.
Bryn remembers, "It was more like a mod band and I used to backcomb my
hair and things like that! It did actually turn out to be psychedelic
in that the substances that we were using back then turned us into a
psychedelic band!"

It was in Fleur de Lys that Haworth sang on record for the first time
on a song aptly called "I Can See A Light". He remembers, "The band
were trying to get singles going at that point. It's interesting
because the first subject matter that I was involved with was 'I Can
See A Light'. I remember writing a song, pretty much after that,
called 'Prodigal Son'. I don't know what was going on!"

The Fleur de Lys were also a session band and found themselves working
with visiting American artists. Bryn continues, "The writers Isaac
Hayes and David Porter were writing all the Stax songs back then, and
they came over for a while. They were writing songs on the spot in the
studio and wanting us to record them so we'd record them as demos for
them. We also worked with Barney Kessel, who was a jazz guitar player;
he used to like using us. There's quite a few people like that so it
was really varied what we did."

The group were on the cusp of the white boy variant of soul music and
a version of Lorraine Ellison's classic soul ballad "Stay With Me
Baby" by Sharon Tandy garnered some attention. Bryn remembers, "We
went out as Sharon's backing band and we recorded a lot of songs with
her. Our manager was a guy named Frank Fenter and he was in charge of
Atlantic Records, which had got all the Stax stuff in the '60s. So we
were introduced to all these people; Tom Dowd used to come over to
produce various things that we were doing. We met Booker T & The
MG's and all these people. When the Stax Revue came, we were there!"
He laughs at the memory.

Wolfgang

Sharon Tandy sang a track on the Fleur de Lys record "Hold On". Bryn
explains, "I co-wrote that one and we put it out as a single. It got
really, really good reviews; I remember John Peel really liked it and
Jimi Hendrix actually complimented me on my solo! I thought, I'm just
trying to copy you!" He laughs. "But Jimi really liked it. It's really
nice when someone like that says they like what you do!"

For those who are familiar with Haworth's signature style as a slide
guitarist, there might be some surprises listening to "Hold On" since
he is playing full-on rock guitar. He explains, "Back then we were a
three-piece so you had to play everything - rhythm and lead at the
same time! I started off as a slide guitar player because I was in the
country really, up in Lancashire, and I couldn't figure out how people
made these sounds. I read an article on slide guitar and I thought,
Oh, that's how they do it! Electric guitars don't have huge big thick
strings on them like a medium-gauge acoustic set, so I got this washer
out of the back of my stepdad's drawer and I pulled it on [my finger]
and started playing slide. I thought that's how you played lead
guitar. So when I came down to London I was a slide guitar player.
Then I saw that they used thin strings and so I chucked it away and
started playing lead guitar that way! But it came back later, in the
'70s."

In 1969, Haworth left Fleur de Lys and moved to America. "I went over
there with a guy called Leigh Stephens. I always wanted to play in
America because I loved American music. I thought, If I can make a
living there I must be okay! It was just a kind of a challenge really.
Leigh Stephens had been in a band called Blue Cheer and he was looking
for a new band. So I went over to join his band, and they were called
Red Weather. So I was back to sing with him in Santa Monica. I started
off that way."

Red Weather fizzled out and Haworth joined another band that forged
associations with the legendary promoter Bill Graham. The band
featured bassist Lee Sklar, keyboardist Kevin Kelly and from this
distance in time a guitarist who Bryn only remembers as "Izzy". He
says, "I really liked that band. We were managed by Bill Graham, whose
real name is Wolfgang Grajonca, and so he said, 'Your name is
Wolfgang. That's what you will be called.' We all protested but we
thought, well you can't really protest! Anyway, he gave us the
Fillmore West to rehearse in. So we got on all these great bills at
Fillmore West and also at Winterland, down the road, in San Francisco.
We were playing with Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane and Grateful
Dead; you name it, we were on these bills because we were managed by
him. And we were a good band. We got a demo done by a guy called Gerry
Goffin; you know Goffin and King? Well, Gerry Goffin put the money up
to record us and we did these demos. It was really full on, you know.
We used to go out and try and blow the main band off! That's what we
did! And we'd go and support people like Mountain and we could do
really well because we were a good band."

John Porter, Bryn Haworth, Dave Mattacks

In good rock'n'roll tradition, Bryn Haworth got busted in America and spent
a night in jail. He remembers, "It was one of those classic Los
Angeles scenes with helicopters and police cars. The thing is the
guitar player was a drug dealer as well which didn't help! We lived
together and this one day we unfortunately got busted so we both got
taken off in the police cars and put in jail. The funny thing is that
somebody paid my bail and I don't know who it was. I was just let out
in the middle of the night and they said, 'Somebody has paid your
bail.' I just didn't know where I was. I was quite 'high' anyway! And
in Los Angeles you walk out into the valley and you could be anywhere;
there's no shops, just roads and Astroturf with coloured lights
everywhere. This car pulled up alongside and said, 'Where are you
going?' And I said, 'I'm going to Box Canyon." And they said, 'Oh,
that's where I live!' So this woman took me up there to Box Canyon;
right to the door!" One wonders whether somewhere on the record books,
there's a note that Bryn
Haworth is a druggie. "Probably!" Bryn laughs, "But when I go into
prisons to play I can actually say, 'Well, I've actually spent a night
in a jail so I have a limited experience!'"

After Wolfgang, Haworth played in Jackie Lomax's band but really he
wanted to return to the UK and start his own band. He remembers,
"There was a drummer from The Grease Band called Bruce Rowland and we
wanted to start something new, so I started writing songs. At the same
time we were friends with John Porter, who was the bass player of Roxy
Music and he was well in with Island Records. He said, 'Why don't you
take your demos to Island Records - to Richard Williams?' Richard
heard my demos and signed me for Island." In the early '70s, Island
was a very young label with a strong roster of interesting and young
talent. They had artists like Richard Thompson, Fairport Convention,
Traffic and later on Bad Company were signed. The label had recording
studios in London in Basing Street but it was the studio in St Peter's
Square in Hammersmith that Haworth remembers with most fondness. "It
was really cool because it had a studio rehearsal hall and like a
hangout place with a café where you could buy food and so everybody
was there - Roxy Music, Traffic; Robert Palmer I remember. Everybody
would just come in and sit around and talk so you did have a real
rapport with others and people were involved in each other's records.
They'd come down to listen if you were recording and you'd get people
walking in and out. And having the rehearsal place there; it was a
really, really good family feeling."

Reader Comments

Posted by Greg M in Austin, Texas @ 03:22 on Jan 20 2017

If all Bryn EVER did was play guitar on " Hold On ", he MORE
than earned his ticket to heaven, in my humble opinion! : )
His solo sounds like " yeah, yeah, I know both my amp and my
guitar are on fire, but I'm gonna finish this lead! " That
whole track he's playing like a clenched fist, just pounding
out some in your face, Class A rock n roll. One of my guitar
heroes!

Bryn is a class act. I don't think hes ever released a bad
album . Nice that some of the older stuff is now released to
cd , even if you do have to pay mega bucks for Japanese
rereleases. Bryn as a man also commands respect. I would
have liked to have heard about the Solid Rock/Starsong
years. I bet there,s some great unheard stories with
Barratt, Mark Williamson and Larry Norman

Bryn has made some wonderful music over the years. I heard
him on Radio 1's In Concert; I was also at GB79 and still
have a photo of him soundchecking. Sunny Side is a brilliant
album, probably his best, but he has produced his best
Christian stuff lately, like the brilliant 7-minute Wash Me
Clean from Keep the Faith. I'd love him to release a
complete blues album, as that is his strength IMHO.

I remember listening to Bryn's "Give All You've Got To Give"
on Radio 1. It was around the time Pink Floyd released
"Wish You Were Here" and Bryn's song stood up magnificently
next to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" with the Les Paul
playing those sweet licks. Great song Bryn!